Hassan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah (31 August 1960-) was the third Secretary-General of Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim terrorist group from Lebanon. He assumed the office on 16 February 1992 after the death of Abbas al-Musawi, and Nasrallah fought against Israel in a series of terrorist attacks.

Biography
Hassan Nasrallah was born on 31 August 1960 in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon (a suburb of Beirut), the ninth son of a Twelver Shia Muslim family. He attended a school in Christian Beirut, but in 1975 his family was forced to relocate to Bazourieh during the Lebanese Civil War, and he joined the Amal Movement. He studied in Iraq under Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr until Sadr's execution in 1980 and was evicted alongside many other Lebanese religious pupils. He became a student of Amal leader Abbas al-Musawi, and it was under Abbas that he gained his ideas of radical Islamism in the struggle over Palestine against Israel. In 1982, he joined Hezbollah following Israel's Operation Peace for Galilee, the IDF's invasion of Lebanon to restore order. In 1991 he took over Hezbollah after the assassination of Musawi, and he led the group in carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. In 1996, Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath against the Hezbollah group in Lebanon, nearly destroying the group. However, in 2000 Israel withdrew from Lebanon and the Christian South Lebanon Army was defeated by Hezbollah. With Nasrallah praised as the man who pushed the Israeli troops out of Lebanon, Hezbollah became a major political party in Lebanon, having the support of both Muslims and anti-Semitic Lebanese Christians. In 2006, after Hezbollah fired anti-tank rockets at Israeli vehicles in the north of the country, Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon in what became known as the July War. 1,300 Lebanese were killed in the war, and the country was devastated in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The war only ended because of United Nations opposition to the costly and destructive conflict, and Hezbollah survived. In May 2013, he joined the Syrian Arab Army in the Syrian Civil War, saying that he wanted to fight against the Islamist extremists as well as the Americans, Israelis, and takfiris. His nephew was killed in July 2014 during the conflict.